Category: SOLVED

I’ve been hunting down this book for decades to no avail. It’s about a group of teens who work at a tobacco-picking camp for the summer. One of the girls is named Kit Falcon. She’s beautiful and confident and has a summer romance with the bus driver. Kit befriends a shy girl who comes out of her shell. There’s a boy who falls for the shy girl and asks her out after the camp counselor gives him special acne-remedy “surgical soap.” It’s such a bizarre setting — kids picking tobacco — but something about it has stayed with me. Help! World Of Their Own by Laura Cooper Rendina solved by Lost Classics reader Sonja

I’m searching for two books, both in the Young Adult genre, and I read them in the late 1970s or early 1980s.  From I remember, one book is about a teen boy who is in love with a blind teen girl.  He covers his eyes (or something like that) to pretend to be blind for a day so he can relate to her.  The title was something like “The Lost Sunday” or something like that.

The other one, I think was “The Best Friend Breakup.”  A teen girl loses her best friend when the friend starts paying more attention to someone else and they drift apart.  The only part of it that I remember is the main character plans on cooking breakfast for her family, so she sets her alarm. However, she messes up the time and the alarm goes off at 1 or 2 in the morning.  Her dad goes into the kitchen and asks why she’s up in the middle of the night.

I’m so sorry I can’t provide more detail, but that’s the only thing I can remember.  That entire YA book genre was fantastic, so if you could possibly find the name of the series, I’d appreciate it. Blind Sunday identified by Lost Classics reader Sheesh 

Hi! I am looking for a book a read a lot as a teen that has not travelled with me in my many moves. It was published in the 80s, I believe. It’s about a girl who is a freshman in high school and wants to be a cheerleader. She has red hair, and older sister, and her family writes on their kitchen table. She likes a boy from another school. There’s a passage I remember when they were sitting on a couch and trying to figure out what it was, the conclusion was naugahyde, and she might have had a friend named Marcy. The cover is a girl jumping in a cheer uniform.
Thanks in advance! I know it wasn’t a fever dream….looking forward to seeing if anyone else read it, or knows what it is!  The Rah Rah Girl By Caroline Cooney identified by Lost Classics reader trinaclem

 Woke up thinking about a book I read in the late 1970s I think where the protagonist was a ? Teenager boy who had been a bully and was trying to turn it around. I remember him trying to lose weight. He had parents who were trying to be supportive o think. That’s all I  got:)  The Bully of Barkham Street by Mary Stoltz, solved by Lost Classics Readers Sandra and Tracy. 

.Unpopular girl in high school befriends a beautiful popular girl who sews her own clothes & wears red-stiched cowboy boots. I think the unpopular girl plays the flute and gets a makeover by the beautiful girl. I remember remember them going to the mall to splurge on an orange julius.    The Best of Friends By Jill Ross Kelvin (Wildfire) solved by Lost Classics reader Sheesh

 The plot was of a teenage couple who fell in love but their story was complicated by the fact that the boy’s mother had killed the girl’s sister in an automobile accident. I don’t remember everything but I think the mother had maybe been driving after a work holiday party, and it was raining, and the girl was riding her bike and was hit by the car. The young teens who fall in love don’t know about this connection at first, then when they find out it pulls them apart.

That’s all I remember; I don’t remember how the story is resolved. From the early-mid 1980s Solved by the original requestor When We First Met by Norma Fox Mazer.

The story takes place during World War II. In an elementary school class, the rich girl’s family loses their money and become poor. She was the most popular girl in the class and loses all her friends. The family moves in to a trailer, and another girl whose family was always poor becomes her friend. I thought the author was Constance Greene, but I can’t remember the title. Wild Violets, by Phyllis Greene found by Lost Classics reader Sandra

. A book about a magic faded purple mailbox with stars on it. I would have read it in 70’s or 80’s. Seven Spells to Sunday by Andre Norton and Phyllis MIller, solved by Lost Classics reader Christmas Bunny  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/863868.Seven_Spells_to_Sunday

 I am looking for a book that I would have read probably in the mid to late 1980s.

A teen girl feels like a misfit. She somehow gets a job taking care of animals (snakes, maybe?) for a magician. I think she might have been skipping school to hang out at his house while he was gone? Eventually she ends up becoming his assistant for some big show and learns how to do some impressive trick. I remember the book describing the outfit she wore during the magic show, maybe that it looked like green shimmering scales. At one point she says something about how she can’t reveal the secrets of tricks but that it was pretty uncomfortable being squished into half a box for the “saw a lady in half” trick.

It is definitely NOT the Magician’s Assistant by Anne Patchett.  Tarantulas on the Brain By Marilyn Singer identified by Lost Classics reader KD

 I just discovered your website and thought I’d inquire about a book from the ’70’s that has eluded me for many years. It is in the supernatural/mystery pre-teen catagory. The main character is a girl named Dorcas who has a special power that is triggered by her spinning top. She is able to predict things that will happen in the future. There is a gentleman sympathetic to her circumstances ( I believe she is an orphan ) who gives her a scarf  (red?) at one point. The plot involves a nefarious character who, she discovers, is not the upstanding person he appears to be. Near the end, he traps her in a cave where he tells her she has made her own grave, now she can die in it. Naturally, she is rescued by the kindly fellow who gave her the scarf. I thought the title was “The Spinning Top” and that the authors last name started with an “S”, but I have had absolutely no luck in tracking this book down. It was a favorite from my childhood, one I checked out many times from the library. I would appreciate any help in locating this book.  The Humming Top by Dorothy Spicer solved by Lost Classics reader Laura and available through Open Library.